Boo Day II

So today marks Boo's second birthday. His treat for today was an extra long walk, where he got to sniff at all the lovely stuff rotting alongside the road and bark at dogs much larger than him (including barking at a very large and playful Newfoundland dog) and an extra dose of puppy crack. Puppy crack is some kind of dried liver thing that he goes absolutely apeshit over.

We haven't had him for two years, of course. But it feels like he's been part of our lives for that long, if not more. We spent weeks doing the research on the breed. In case you're just wandered by for the first time, Boo is a Coton de Tulear. Then there was the weeks we spent waiting from the time he was born until we could finally get him.

He's been a good dog. I would fear for Cathy's sanity the past couple of years without him. And, by default, my sanity. Because while I like having Boo around, Cathy would have nothing to pick on and maul if he wasn't around except for me. And that likely would have driven me mad.

I've already put a lot of pictures of Boo up online, so I'll just keep to a couple today. The first one we ever received and one I took this evening. He's changed just a wee bit over the past two years.


A couple of hours old.


A couple of hours ago, perched on his throne by the window where he can look out and bark at every dog that walks by the apartment.

Last Five
1. Return - OK Go
2. Winter (live) - Tori Amos
3. Pope - Prince
4. The heart of Saturday night - Tom Waits
5. Closing the door and opening the window - Drive

Saturday photos on Sunday night

It was actually a pretty nice weekend around town. The temperatures were at unseasonable levels on Saturday. And by unseasonable I mean above 0C. I'm trying to remember the last time it was that warm in town. It might have been September or October. So the option of wandering around outside without the BFC (Big Fucking Coat) and just having on a fleece was really nice.

Boo was pretty happy as well, as for the first time in about six months he was able to run around outside without boots and a coat on. Of course, there were risks other than frostbite when we had him out. We went down by the edge of the ice in the bay and there were more skidoos zipping by than cars on the 401 at rush hour (I exaggerate, but not by much).

Anyway, a few pictures of our adventures out on a walk yesterday. Besides, I thought some of you might find it interesting to see how much the little bugger blends into the landscape when he doesn't have a bright red coat on.



See, he blends.



I fooled around a bit with this one and leached out most of the colour. But still, even close up you can see how much he tends to blend in.



I like this one. It almost looks like he's guarding his cave or something.



Boo desperately wanted to go over and see this dog, but we didn't think it would be safe. I always feel bad for dogs on a leash this short.



I just like the framing of this shot.



I'm beginning to seriously think that ravens are the hardest thing to photograph in Nunavut. It's like the lens slides right off of them. It's nearly impossible to get a shot of them that shows any detail.



After a long day of running through snow banks, across ice and then getting a bath, a dog can be pretty tired.

Last Five
1. Under the weather - KT Tunstall
2. Down on rodeo - Lindsey Buckingham
3. Yesterdays - Guns 'n Roses
4. Bad (live) - U2*
5. Greensleeves - John Coltrane

Boo on ice

So with the temperatures creeping up in the balmy mid -20s, and no wind today, I decided to take Boo out for a walk. The poor dog has been cooped up inside the apartment most of the winter because it's been too cold to take him outside for even a few minutes.

The result has been, well, I won't say psychotic episodes, but certainly prolonged bouts of exceptional binkiness. For example, we might be sitting on the couch and the dog will start running from the living room to the bedroom barking for no reason for about 10 minutes. Cathy has been throwing his stuffed fish so much we think she might have actually injured her elbow from doing it.

He needs to get out more and with the weather becoming something other than bitter, freeze your ass off in less than five minutes cold that's likely to start happening more.

Today Cathy took the car and went to a scrap-booking class. So rather than drive up to the Road to Nowhere or go the Sylvia Grinnell Park, I just walked five minutes from the apartment and out onto the ice covering the bay. And Boo has himself a fine old time running around like a maniac, bouncing through snow drifts and chasing after imaginary things.

Here are some of the photo highlights.

















Last Five
1. Atlantic Blue - Ron Hynes*
2. Under my thumb - Rolling Stones
3. Two shots of happy - Matt Dusk
4. So here we are - Bloc Party
5. Diamond ring - Sheryl Crow

Winter gear

So we've been cruising near the "special" cold the last couple of days. We consider days colder than -50 "special" cold because it goes from, "hey, this is kind of cold" to "hey, this fucking hurts" kind of cold. These are the days we warn people down south about when they move up here. The ones if you don't dress right for them, you will find yourself in a world of hurt in a hurry. It's not there, but really, -47 with windchill is close enough.

Which makes it a really excellent time for the car battery to be dead and for me to have to walk back and forth to work. This kind of cold is fun in that you have to bundle up right for it, but it also pretty much assure you that you're sweating buckets by the time you get where you're going. Note to self, when I walk to work tomorrow, toss in a towel so I can dry myself off a bit when I get to work.

To some extent myself and Cathy have, well, not rooting for this, but certainly not wishing it away. The thing about temperatures this cold is that you rarely get any snow or severe weather. This kind of cold normally means clear skies. Which means bright sun during the day and clear skies at night. But very cold. Which we can handle as we want to make sure the weather is fine when we leave Wednesday evening. No storms for us, thank you very much.

This kind of cold also means we have to take a few extra precautions with Boo. We haven't been dressing him up to much when he goes outside to do his business this winter in the hopes that a bit of cold might encourage him to speed the process slightly. Don't worry, we never stay out with him long enough so that he's at risk or anything. But right now it's simply to cold. His paws can't handle this kind of cold. And his fur is so fine that it can only protect him for a few minutes.

Which means it's time for his gear.



The coat is hand made and we bought it at the craft fair last month. The boots we bought down south. Watching him trying to walk in this is worth the price of admission, although he's a bit of a Houdini when it comes to his ability to get out of them when he's walking outside. You can probably tell that in this picture, as he's already manage to shed one boot.

Still, Cathy thinks he's about the cutest thing ever in his outfit.

Last Five
1. Rocketman - Elton John
2. Golden feather - Robbie Robertson
3. Another pilot - Hey Rosetta*
4. Daniel (live) - Billy Joel and Elton John
5. Hypnotize - The White Stripes

The return of Boo

By popular demand, here are some new pictures of Boo. For those of you new to the blog, Boo is a Coton de Tulear. He's also about 17 months old and while out of his puppy stage is still a fairly large imp.

The pictures taken were from tonight and Saturday. If he looks soggy in some of them, it was because he had just taken a bath. One of these days I must try and shoot some video of what he's like after he gets his bath. Surely the neighbours must know when it happens, because he runs around like a maniac for 15 minutes and doesn't stop barking.

Anyway, the main attraction.


Cheezie Thief.


Checking out the main drag.


Throw the damn fish already.


Apparently, my attempt to hide so you can't photograph me has failed.


Why yes, I am stunning.


Nap time.

Two random things

You can get weird searches coming through a blog sometimes. For example, I still get hits for people looking for a specific pron site because I once typed in two fair innocent words. I won't say what they are because I'm really not looking for that kind of traffic. But let's say every time I check Statcounter there's always weird result listed there.

But the best in recent days was someone typing into Google looking for "Me and You and a God Named Boo." Which I think is pretty damn funny considering I'm sure our little furball probably thinks he should be a god. Or at least worshipped and treated like one.

Oddly enough, when you actually do that search most of the results are for the actual song, but there is one for that spelling. It's for a song supposedly song that charted in Switzerland. However, I'm pretty sure that has to be a typo as well.

By the way, I'll try and take some pictures of Boo over the weekend and provide his fans with an update.

My other oddity is this story. Now, for you reporters out there who read this blog, and I know there are a few of you, there is an important thing you should know. If you ever find yourself doing a story about comic books and you used this headline or some variant, or you use it as your lede (this is actually a wire story, so the headline was the lede in other places) anybody who collects comics can legally beat you up. That might not be a scary prospect, but there are a lot of us out there and we can sneak up on you when you're not expecting it.

This story is the dream if you've ever collected comics long enough. You somehow magically stumble across Detective #27 or Action #1, both of which are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Lord know when I was growing up I'd always run into someone around the bay who would claim to have had some ultra rare comic when they were growing up or who had a relative who might still have them in a basement or attic somewhere.

Never panned out, of course. Never stopped me from looking, though. When I was younger I used to hit used book stores and garage sales looking for comics that people thought were worthless. Found some pretty cool stuff over the years too. But alas, nothing worth six figures. I think the best I ever did was buy a copy of Spider-Man #300 for 50 cents and resold it a week later for $50. Oh, and I bought some comics off a guy who, in retrospect, was probably selling them to buy drugs. What I bought for $80 I later resold for close to $1,000.

Comics are a ruthless business, folks. There used to be a small group of us in St. John's about 15 years ago constantly on the prowl for deals like this. We called ourselves Mercs.

Cathy asked me this evening if I had any $100,000 comics stashed around. Alas, no. I have maybe a dozen or so worth a couple of hundred dollars. Which isn't bad. But I do still dream of going into an attic one day, moving a few boxes and finding that magic comic.

In the meantime, please don't use "Holy -----, Batman!" in any story you write. Thank you...

Things that go Boo in the night

So we're having a few more challenges with Boo. I imagine at some point we'll get everything straighted out with him, but for right now he can still manage to throw a surprise or three our way.

Some might recall that earlier the year we had problems with him barking in the middle of the night and waking us up if he heard a noise in the corridor. For the most part, that's a habit he's broken. There's the odd flare-up, but until recently unless there was an ungodly racket, he was sleeping through the night.

In the last month or so, however, he's introduced two new variants on this.

The first came as the amount of daylight began to increase. Typically, Boo would begin to crash for the evening as it got dark and the drapes were closed. However, with the increase in daylight, he wasn't going to sleep as early. So even when I was getting ready to head to bed around 11:30, Boo was deciding now would be a good time to fetch his squeaky toy and insist on playing.

So that was a week or two of him whining at midnight looking for attention and us trying to persuade him that he needed to go to sleep now. He's getting the point, but he does have more vim later in the evening than he did before.

Then again, the increased daylight tends to mess with everyone at this year, so why not a dog that doesn't really know any better.

But the latest trick came Friday night. With temperature finally staying above 0C on a regular basis now, we need to open the windows to the apartment or it gets unbearable stuffy.

Yes, those of you getting temperatures in the mid-20s are probably perplexed on why 3C merits opening the windows. I've said it before, but just as a refresher, most of the new building are super-insulated. That makes sense, when for about eight months of the year you're dealing with sub-zero temperatures. But during the summer it can make them awfully warm.

Those stories about how people now need fans and air conditioning in the arctic because it's now so warm...partially true. The other half is just better building construction.

Anyway, so we have the windows opening during the day so the place isn't a sauna when we get home. However, on Friday night we experimented with leaving the windows open at "night." Remember, 24 hours of daylight now. It's doesn't cool down much at midnight.

Nor are people more likely to be sleeping. They are likely to be out wandering, placing soccer, drinking, cursing and do whatever you feel like doing at this weird time of the year.

Which is, of course, severely throwing off Boo. Several times Friday and Saturday night Boo awoke barking loudly, and jolting us awake, barking at some affront taking place outside our apartment. It then takes about 15 minutes to get him calmed down and convince him that our lives are not in peril and that he should shut the fuck up.

The weirdest one came at 4:07 a.m. Sunday morning. The times Boo woke us up Saturday morning were from drunks cursing outside the apartment. This place is quieter than the 6-story, but it is still perched on one of the main intersections in town. There is traffic, of the vehicular and human variety.

But last night he woke us when four girls were outside throat singing.

Which, in his defence, is a bit of a weird thing to wake up to and does, in a semi-conscious, sound a bit like dogs barking. Still, it's something new to have work on. He' either going to have to get used to the noise outside or we're going to have to close the windows and hope that a fan is enough to prevent us from melting during the night.

Ahhh, the joys of dog ownership...

Boo at one year

So today marks Boo's first birthday. One year ago today we got the e-mail from the breeder, with a picture of our dog. I haven't written much about Boo lately because for the first little while when we got him I wrote an awful lot about him. And while there wasn't a backlash, there was the distinct feeling that people would likely prefer if I shut up about the dog for a bit (much like curling).

For those new to the blog, Boo is a Coton de Tulear, which sounds unbelievably pompous when you tell random strangers what kind of dog he is. We've just shortened it to "He's a Coton." We got him for many reasons, but two of the main selling points for the breed is that he's small (Boo is around 12 pounds) and hypo-allergenic. Which is good, as Cathy is allergic to pet dander.

He's Cathy's dog, and I've always maintained that, much like Max was my cat. And she loves him like crazy. Boo certainly never lacks for love and he's probably one spoiled little dog. I've always been a big dog person myself, but I have to admit he's great company to have around. And Cathy picks on him instead of me when she gets bored, for which I owe the dog a debt of gratitude that can never really be repaid.

So what quirks does he have at one year? Well, he dances on his back legs, which is a touch odd. I think I timed him at 20 seconds once. He freaks out over the new vacuum. He chats with you, not so much with barks, but with a bunch of odd little noises. He's well behaved for the most part, although a touch more vocal than I would like. Then again, I'm spoiled from my father's golden retriever, quite simply the quietest dog I've ever been around.

He's a good boy and I know his "grandparents" are looking forward to having him around the summer when Cathy takes him back to Newfoundland.

And now, a few pictures of Boo from one year ago and today, with a few days in-between. Warning, the following section is probably too insanely cute for words.



Newly born.



About six weeks old.



Shortly after he got him, about 12 weeks old. The shoe is a size 9, for a comparison.



Out on the land with Cathy.



Last December, out for a walk in his coat.



End of January this year with his new hair cut.



Back in March.



He's not always cute, here's the drowned rat look after he gets a bath.



Earlier today. Notice the cat-like habit of getting on top of furniture.



Boo ready for his close up.

Weigh-in and photos

So the whole weight loss thing appears to be sliding away from me. Think I got cocky with the relative success had early on. I slid up another two pounds this week and sit at 239. Which sucks. I think I'm doing ok on the exercise front, but I''m clearly sliding on the eating front. Doesn't help that the secretary near by office is becoming a clearing house for all the chocolate she has in her house.

That, of course, is a cheap cop out. I've just been sliding on the snacking at home and the portions. And since I've discovered that the weight won't magically disappear, it's back to watching what I eat again. Which kind of sucks, but I really would like to lose that 50 pounds by the end of the year.

Anyway, enough whining about weight, a few photos from Sunday when I took the dog for a walk out the Road to Nowhere. Also took the new camera. I think I got some of hte white balance issues worked out. Then again, it helped that it was a bright sunny day. Here are a few pics.



I just like the way the sun looks in this shot.



Just a lucky shot of Boo in mid-flight.



We found this igloo along the side of the road. No one was there and I have no idea how long it had been standing, but I still liked the look of it. Believe it or not, after 18 months in Nunavut, this is my first igloo.

Clearly I'm leading a sheltered life up here.

Correctional measures

So we're debating a mildly controversial decision here at the Chateau. We were woke up at 5:40 this morning by Boo informing us that the dog in the apartment across the hall was awake and making noise. He did this with an explosion of barking that they surely must have heard half way across Iqaluit. I'm surprised Cathy didn't have to pry me off the ceiling.

Boo refused to settle for the next couple of hours, continuing to bark and trying to squirm away from us so he could go to the door to the apartment and bark some more. Fortunately we both had the morning off because of the blizzard, but there is no guarantee that we won't get a repeat performance tomorrow morning. This has been going on pretty much every morning for a week now. And yes, I appreciate those of you reading this blog who are parents and who get up with small children might not have a lot of sympathy. However, that is one of many reasons why we don't have children right now. We like sleeping. Quite fond of it. And when it gets disrupted, we become unhappy.

Boo has actually been barking a lot more since he came back from St. John's. It's a bad habit he picked up. And regardless of what the other dog does, we have to discourage him from doing it otherwise our neighbours are going to rightly start complaining about us. So far, we're not having much luck. Shaking a can with pennies didn't work. Telling him to be quiet in a forceful, but quiet voice didn't work. Picking him up and asserting our dominance over him hasn't worked. We're running out of ideas.

That's why we're debating getting a correctional collar.

Yes, I know, not exactly a popular decision among many, I suspect. But we're still in the early stages of doing research. As best I can figure there are three types. One that squirts the dog if he barks, sometimes with water, sometimes with a scent that the dog will not like. One emits a frequency only the dog can hear that will annoy him every time he barks. And, of course, one that will give the dog a little shock every time he barks.

If we go down the route, odds are we'll go down with the one that emits the frequency. The scented one strikes me as a bit risky in that we've tried spraying stuff that Boo likes to chew on and it hasn't deterred him, plus Cathy could be allergic to the smell. And the electric shock is a bit to cruel for my liking.

We haven't exhausted the possibility that we can get him to stop barking quite so much and perhaps Boo will stop freaking out every time he hears a noise out in the corridor or from the other dog. If he does, great. If not, well, we'll probably give him another week or so and then seriously look at ordering a collar. He wouldn't wear it all the time, but he would when we're sleeping.

Because really, this whole being awoken at 6 a.m. by a sonic explosion disguised as a small dog is getting really tired, real fast.

Avert your eyes

This post continues pictures of Boo. I recently grumbled about being subjected to pictures of new parents kids and people called me in on it, so this is your heads up that there will be pictures of the dog coming up as you scroll down the page. Feel free to flee this blog now.

Seriously, pictures are forthcoming. If you keep going down, you can't blame me for subjecting you to pictures of the dog.

Last warning...

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Boo checking out the sunset. Just for the record, this was taken around 1 p.m.




Boo and his red coat. This helps to keep him warm. The temperature when the photo was taken was around -20, but with no wind. We're thinking about getting him a warmer coat when we're home. We also have to get him some boots as the ones we have are too slippery.




Cathy walking Boo. This is on the Road to Nowhere, which goes out from Iqaluit to, well, guess where...


It's funny as I type this we're watching the highlights of the St. John's Santa Claus parade on NTV. Why? Because Cathy loves the parade. Every year she's in town she's in attendance. Anyway, Saturday was the Iqaluit Santa Claus parade and we got home from walking the dog just ahead of it. I don't have any pictures because it zipped by that fast (that and the camera was steamed up after taking photos outside). It went by our apartment in less than five minutes and had maybe two floats, several cars, lots of RCMP and fire trucks, Polar Man (more on him another time) and Santa Claus.

Then again, when it's -20 you don't exactly take you time walking in the Santa Claus parade.